Great article from Tony Haile (CEO of Chartbeat) called “What You Think You Know About the Web is Wrong“, totally worth the read.

Tony presents compelling data that goes against some of the way brands and marketers have in the past deemed important metricks to measure.

I’ve highlighted some of the key findings and quotes that I felt were important from a content and marketing perspective.

#1 We read what we’ve clicked.

“a stunning 55% spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a web page”

The most valuable audience is the one that comes back. Those linkbait writers are having to start from scratch every day trying to find new ways to trick clicks from hicks with the ‘Top Richest Fictional Public Companies’. Those writers living in the Attention Web are creating real stories and building an audience that comes back.

#2 The more we share the more we read. Do we read the articles we share? 

“only one tweet and eight Facebook likes for every 100 visitor”

“measuring social sharing is a great for understanding social sharing, but if you’re using that to understand which content is capturing more of someone’s attention, you’re going beyond the data. Social is not the silver bullet of the Attention Web”

#3 Native Advertising is not the savior of publishing

“On a typical article two-thirds of people exhibit more than 15 seconds of engagement, on native ad content that plummets to around one-third. ”

#4 Banner Ads Don’t Work

Here’s the skinny, 66% of attention on a normal media page is spent below the fold. That leaderboard at the top of the page? People scroll right past that and spend their time where the content not the cruft is. Yet most agency media planners will still demand that their ads run in the places where people aren’t and will ignore the places where they are.